Did Barack Obama Oversee the Separation of 89,000 Children From Their Parents?
A right-wing Facebook page publishes a grossly misleading meme that compares the immigration policies of the 44th and 45th presidents.

CLAIMUnder President Barack Obama, 89,000 children were separated from their immigrant parents at the United States border.

Rating: False

Fact Check Politics
Did Barack Obama Oversee the Separation of 89,000 Children From Their Parents?
A right-wing Facebook page publishes a grossly misleading meme that compares the immigration policies of the 44th and 45th presidents.

Facebook2kRedditPinterestTwitterWhatsAppMore
CLAIM
Under President Barack Obama, 89,000 children were separated from their immigrant parents at the United States border.

RATING
FALSE

ORIGIN
The Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy became the leading political issue of the summer of 2018, with images and accounts of children being separated from their detained immigrant parents causing widespread outrage and fierce debate.

In light of this outrage, some commentators — many but by no means all supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump — sought to highlight the immigration policies of former president Barack Obama and leveled allegations of hypocrisy against Trump’s liberal opponents, reminding them that some critics of Obama referred to him as the “Deporter-in-Chief” during his administration due to the record number of deportations that took place during his two terms — which was due in part, but not entirely, to a change in the definition of the word.

On 23 June 2018, the right-wing “Federalist Papers” Facebook page published a widely-shared meme which claimed that Obama had overseen the separation of 89,000 children from their parents at the United States border with Mexico, alleging a “double standard” and “media bias” against Trump.

Compare:[Donald Trump] 1,900 children separated from parents at border. Result — MEDIA FRENZY.
[Barack Obama] 89,000 children separated from parents at border. Result — SILENCE.

Summer of Rage White men are the minority in the United States — no wonder they get uncomfortable when their power is challenged.

The hold that the minority has on every realm of power — economic, social, sexual — is so pervasive and assumed that we don’t even notice when the few oppress the many.

"The handwringing over white men is what has kept newspapers publishing endless stories about Trump’s base and their unwavering devotion to him, all while ignoring the grassroots rage spreading through the majority."

...............

We’ve spent the last week hearing mewlings of concern over interrupted dinners and movie nights of Trump administration officials out on the town. In the wake of DSA protesters heckling Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and presidential adviser Stephen Miller at Mexican eateries, and the decision of one restaurant owner in Virginia not to serve Trump’s spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the Washington Post editorialized that these White House power players should “be allowed to eat dinner in peace.” After all, the Post wondered, “how hard is it to imagine” how those on the left might feel if “people who strongly believe that abortion is murder” decided not to let them “live peaceably with their families”?

What remained unimaginable to the editorial writers was the reality those who protect abortion rights — not to mention those who simply avail themselves of reproductive health-care services — face regular death threats, are screamed at while walking into clinics; reproductive health-care workers have been among the victims of clinic shootings and bombings and, of course, abortion doctors have been assassinated. In 2014 the Supreme Court enshrined the right to harass women entering clinics by ruling that buffer zones between protesters and patients weren’t required. In a brilliant New York Times column, Michelle Goldberg argued that the Post’s failure to acknowledge these forms of harassment was symptomatic of the “reflexive false balance” of the mainstream political media, but I think it’s more than that: The hold that the minority has on every realm of power — economic, social, sexual — is so pervasive and assumed that we don’t even notice when the few oppress the many. It’s invisible, and any show of defiance against that power is what stands out as aberrant and dangerous.

..............

These people had nice dinners in restaurants interrupted. They did not have their children pulled from their arms, perhaps forever; they were not refused refuge based on their country of origin or their religion or the color of their skin; they were not denied due process; nor were they denied a full range of health-care options, forced to carry a baby against their will, separated from their families via the criminal justice system, or shot in the back by police for the mere act of being young and black.

And yes, some of the upholders of minority power are themselves women — women working in service of a brutal white patriarch and the brutal white patriarchal party he leads. Similarly, a majority of white women voted for Trump, and always vote for his party, because they benefit from white supremacy even as they are subjugated by patriarchy. This same dynamic explains why higher percentages of men in every racial category voted for Trump and his party: They gain through the patriarchy even as they are oppressed by white supremacy. This is how minority rule persists.

................

One reason that the fury of women is regularly dismissed as theatrical and marginal and unserious is precisely because, on some level, the powerful must sense that it is the opposite of all of those things. That, in fact, it presents a very real threat. Not just to Charlie Rose’s seat at Michael’s or Joe Crowley’s seat in Congress or to the notion of “civility.” The reason the anger of a majority gets suppressed is because it has the power to imperil the rule of the minority.